Translation
However, if you have married, you did not sin; and if a virgin has married, she did not sin. However, such will have pressure in the flesh.
Go to footnote numberI am now sparing you.
Paraphrase
However, if you were engaged and you followed through with it and got married, you did not do anything wrong, despite me telling people to stay in the condition in which they find themselves. Also, if a chaste young woman gets married, she has done nothing wrong. However, be advised that people who do get married will have much hardship and even persecution in the physical realm. I am trying to spare you from that kind of suffering.
Footnotes
1: “in the flesh”
Paul usually used this phrase with a spiritual connotation; however, this occurrence does not appear to follow that pattern. It appears to mean in the physical realm in which we live.
WHY DID PAUL SAY THEY WOULD HAVE HARDSHIP?
First he stated the principle he was emphasizing in this entire passage – to stay as you are – then he gave the reason – because of the present crisis or hardship the believers were facing. I am convinced he meant that those who enter a time a persecution with close connections to others will find the decision to follow Jesus at any cost more painful because they will be forced to leave a loved one behind or forced to watch a loved one suffer. An unattached man has only his life to lose and thus he can take more risks without hurting anyone else. A man with a wife and children will suffer much emotional pain if he takes a stand for Jesus knowing that he is causing his family to suffer also. For these reasons Paul says what he did in the following sections.